Page 13 of Heart of Shadows

Brand grumbled, but subsided. His attention snapped up, behind Aedon, as Erika approached slowly, limping and grimacing. “Are you all right?” Brand asked in a low voice, the only outward sign of his worry for her. Aedon wasn’t fooled. After so long travelling together, he knew what passed between them; the intimacies they would never give voice to.

Holding her head high, Erika met his gaze for a brief moment before sweeping her attention around the canyon again. Her reply was curt and practical. She found no comfort in weakness. “Aye. Enough bickering. We need to get away from this pass and to somewhere more defensible, lest they return.”

“They won’t.” Aedon coughed. His throat was so sore, it felt like he had swallowed a blade.

“You’d better hope not,” Brand muttered.

Their collective nerves were well frayed by the time they made camp that evening beneath a painfully indefensible outcrop. Ta’hiir and El’hari were out there in the dark. Everyone knew it, though they did not speak of it. The wood elves would have even greater cause to pursue them now. Aedon did not know what he had hurt more—their bodies or their pride. He clenched the glass vial all the tighter. If she wanted it back so badly, El’hari would indeed have to pry it from his dead hands—and he swore that he would not give her the damned pleasure.

12

DIMITRI

The cold chilled Dimitri to his marrow as freezing wind drove down from the mountains into the wide square. The king sat upon the dais at the head of the square with Queen Idaelia to one side. Off the dais stood the royal family, their faces devoid of any emotion, as the line of soldiers guarding them held back the crowd. Not a body more could fit in the square. They hung out of windows, sat atop walls, carts—anything just for a view. The news had spread like wildfire.

Dimitri stood to one side with the rest of the court. His bones ached, but he would not move. Would not draw the slightest attention to himself. He had a perfect view of the most terrible sight. In the middle of the square, a line of pyres stood. Upon freshly chopped wood were the accused, lashed to the stakes at their centre. They were unrecognisable. Bedraggled and beaten, their finery had been stripped away. Ragged hair flew in the wind, unrestrained and tangled as it whipped around them. They stood, shuddering with cold—and fear—with only thin, cheap cloth to conceal their modesty. It did not protect them from the driving wind in the slightest.

Some sagged in their bindings, already unconscious from their torture. Others shouted, pleaded, begged their case to the king, to the crowd, to anyone who would listen. Toroth silenced them with a wave of his hand. Their mouths did not cease moving, but all the sound of their voices snapped off in an instant. At their silence, the noise of the crowd increased, cursing them all in Saradon’s name. Projectiles sailed through the air—rotten vegetables, offal, excrement—to pelt the unfortunates. The king could not have chosen his accusations more perfectly. Even now, the people still feared Saradon and the threat he had posed to their way of life. It was an effective propaganda.

Dimitri stood as immobile as the rest of the court, his face carved with coldness, but inside, he raged. It only fuelled his decision. They did not see that the way of life they sought to protect was one of oppression, fed to them so well from the crown that they believed in their liberties and rights. And yet, Toroth could end them with a word at any moment. Snap their necks. Crush their minds. Steal the life from their veins. It would be easy for one of his power to do on a whim. But this… This was cruelty. It was a spectacle, a performance. An example was to be made of those innocents who stood there—one to keep everyone else in line.

A shadow fell over them, blotting out all light in the square. Dimitri did not look up. He knew what came. A cry rose from the crowd, followed immediately by a hush. The Pelenori were proud of their dragons, but right to fear them. They were the largest beasts in the country and bound by intangible magics that the mortal populace would never understand—or truly trust, when every fibre of their being screamed with the terror of being prey in the presence of such predators.

The black dragon descended from the steel-grey skies and landed with a thud that shook them all. Only the stone of the capital could withstand it without crumbling and cracking under such force. And those claws… Dimitri swallowed at their proximity, but did not allow himself to otherwise flinch away, despite the beast being far too close for comfort.

The tail that encircled the queen’s throne close by was an impenetrable, glistening, black wall of scales and spikes, whilst its head curled around to the king. It stood several times the height of Toroth, who was dwarfed by its bulk as he laid a hand upon its cheek. Eyes of liquid gold with dark voids for pupils stalked every movement in the square. Dimitri instinctively shivered as its attention skimmed across him.

A deep rumble came from its chest, its jaw slightly ajar. As if any of them needed reminding it had teeth as long as their legs, and worse inside its belly. As much as dread filled Dimitri at the presence of the behemoth and what he knew was to come, he felt a momentary pang of envy at the thought of what it would be like to have such a fearsome predator at his disposal. Dimitri no longer dwelt on what could have been had he been permitted to attend selection, or had a chance to become a member of the legendary Winged Kingsguard. Even so, he could not help but wonder what it felt like to control such strength. This dragon, and all the dragons of the Winged Kingsguard, were the reason no uprising in Pelenor had been successful in over three thousand years.

Smoke curled from the dragon’s nostrils as Toroth stirred, then stood.

Dimitri could not—would not—listen as the king proclaimed the guilt of those standing before them, embellishing his fabricated tales of their treasons and their secret plots in Saradon’s name, decreeing that they would die for their sins against him and Pelenor. He stared into the bitter clouds, longing for the wind to rise and toss the king’s words into the skies.

The accused openly sobbed. Few stood without fear on their face, for they knew Toroth’s mind would not change, and faced their doom. Those golden eyes were death on swift wings. There could be few more painful ways, but at least it would be quick, Dimitri hoped. The dragon’s head snaked forward, its tongue flicking out from between its teeth to scent the air. It hissed before rearing tall. In its ashen chest, a glow built, a sun burning inside its chest that was blinding in the darkness of the gathering storm. Up the dragon’s throat it burned, until the beast held pure molten fire in its jaws.

At the king’s signal, it unleashed its worst.

Dimitri threw his hands before his face, recoiling with the rest of the crowd. The wave of heat rolled over them all, scalding his palms, his neck, the tips of his ears. It stole the breath from his mouth as it burned his lips. Blinding light flared, forcing his eyes shut, as the fire instantly took hold and the wooden pyres ignited in a blaze.

Mere moments, and it was over. Giant jaws clamped shut, cutting off the stream of flames. Its belly darkened. Such was the fury of the fire, the intensity of the heat, that after only seconds, most of the wood had been incinerated. Dimitri looked away from the sad piles of remains as the stench of burnt wood and charred flesh passed them, and a belch of ash and smoke enveloped the crowd. A part of him ached for them.

There was a long silence before murmurs arose—quiet, fearful ones, as though the crowd did not dare rouse the king’s anger further. The storm spoke for them, having no such qualms. The heavens opened to assault them, sleet and rain hissing as it vapourised upon the pyres.

Toroth stared at the destruction before him, stern faced. Then, he rose and departed without a word, followed by his retinue. At his unspoken command, the dragon launched itself into the skies, battering the square with a cruel blast of air that turned the sleet into weapons that sliced into the upturned faces. Dimitri shielded his head under his cloak—and when he looked up, the dragon had vanished into the seething skies. His heart hammering and the nausea of anxiety swimming around the pit of his stomach, Dimitri could not bear to be there a moment longer. He folded himself into shadow and silence and spirited himself away upon the wind, leaving shouts of alarm in his wake. Now. He had to act now. There could be no more of this.

13

DIMITRI

In darkest hours before the coming of dawn, Dimitri poured over manuscripts in the Athenaeum—the royal library—bending close to examine the tiny script in the small, wavering glow of faelight he had conjured. He could have afforded a bigger light, but he was in the restricted section. Whilst his rank gave him privilege to use it, Dimitri preferred to remain below the attention of the archive keepers, slipping through their realm like a shadow.

The fire driving him burnt like the dragon’s flame as the idea took hold. Could he use Saradon to rally a rebellion to his name? Saradon might have been long dead, but he was still a talisman of fear and change. It had been plain to see in the square—fear was a dangerous beast. Yet, it was also a tool. Yes, it could stifle and suppress… but it could also ignite a frenzy.

“The Heart of a Dragon shall resurrect him. The Heart of a Dragon will cast him down,” Dimitri muttered to himself, searching through the passages for any mention of such a prophecy, but none could he find. There were other, equally tantalising references of Saradon, but with no clarity to them. Dimitri sighed. He reviewed what he had—a scattering of phrases and sentences written on a small square of parchment in neat, cursive script in the coded language only he understood.

“‘As it was before, so it will be again, and this time, thrice as hard and thrice as deadly. A fated one holds the key. The fated one is a pinprick of light against an onslaught of darkness.’” The portrait of Saradon standing tall before the tiny light that defeated him sprang to mind. “Is this referring to what has already happened?” Of course, the empty night held no answers, only frustration. “This is impossible!” Dimitri tossed aside the book in annoyance. It slammed to the floor, and Dimitri cursed silently as the slap echoed through the shelves.

He suppressed a sneeze as dust from the ancient articles tickled his nose. For good measure, he warded himself so no sound of his presence would be heard, admonishing himself for failing to do so the moment he had entered, having forgotten in his anticipation. He spread a warmth spell, too, for no fires burnt in the place—too much a risk to the precious things gathered within—and the stone halls were draughty with the sneaking night air.

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